Slime Part II

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Pre-slimed tubes - handy!

After dealing with a ridiculous number of flats on the Sunday group ride we were convinced that getting Slime in our tubes was necessary for more Sedona riding. Due our Baja Slime fiasco I wasn’t going to mess around so we picked up 4 tubes with Slime already in them at the Fat Tire bike shop. They cost ~ $10 each it was basically the same price as buying tubes and Slime separately without any of the hassles of squirting Slime into the tubes.

Our very first ride Kurt got a thorn puncture in a Slime tube and after spinning the tire a few times the hole sealed on its own – nice.

If you are headed to the desert to mountain bike Slimed tubes make sense and it’s better to just get that problem solved right at the start than have 21 people waiting for you while you fix flats on a group ride!!!

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7 responses

Not a bad price; Walmart sells them too if you ever get in a bind. My city bike came with slime tubes, but they make an unholy mess if you ever have a catastrophic blow out. I managed to slice a tire on a scrap of broken glass bottle…I am still cleaning slime off of and out of places on the bike months later.

Aaron

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Zyzzyx(09:32:59) :

Vik,

Here in eastern WA we’ve got the dreaded goathead thorns. I know many of the guys riding in the dirt around here have gone tubeless, using Stans No-Tubes. Riding past the trailhead (on my recumbent) I stopped and talked to a guy for a bit. He had well over 30 thorns broken off in his front tire, still holding air just fine. Pull one out, spin the tire once, sealed right up. Very slick.

It’s OK, but I think it makes you complacent. I’ve had punctures in slimed tubes, and not really fretted about them for far too long. Then you get a real puncture that the slime can’t fix, and you end up in a terrible mess. On the whole, I’d rather avoid places where you’re going to get lots of flats (yeah, I know – somewhat incompatible with riding in the desert!)

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Sean Ralph(12:41:41) :

When I was in Moab last year, the shop I rented from was putting Stan’s No-Tubes sauce in tubes instead of Slime. Seemed to work well too (no flats for me) and the tubes didn’t seem as heavy as slimed ones.

I’m not going to avoid the desert because there are thorns…lol…far to nice to miss these places for that reason. I always carry a regular spare tube so I can swap it in if the Slime tube is irreparably damaged.

I’ve heard Stan’s is good, but I’m not interested in messing about filling tubes with sealant and only saw Slime tubes in Moab & Sedona.

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Mohjho(23:18:29) :

I sliced a slime filled tire along the sidewall once on some Tahoe shale. The result was an explosion of green slime all over me and my bike. Oh yea, fun!

You definitely need to carry a spare tube in case something happens to the slime tube. Slime isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but after you’ve fixed your 4th or 5th small thorn puncture on a ride it starts to make a lot of sense.